The universe is slowly coming unglued. Thermodynamics tells us that its
disorder is slowly increasing to an ultimate "heat death". Astrophysics tells
us that all stars are slowly burning up their nuclear fuel and all will
collapse to cooling "black dwarf" stars, neutron stars, and black holes.
Quantum mechanics tells us that the black holes themselves are slowly fizzing
away to nothingness by boiling off Hawking radiation. But perhaps most
devastating of all, we now have reason to believe that a fundamental building
block of the universe, the proton which is the core of every hydrogen atom, has
only a "limited warranty" which runs out in about 1032 years. With
about that half-life protons (and all of the more complicated nuclei containing
protons) will "decay", releasing much energy as they are transformed into
lighter particles. The process ends with a positron and some neutrinos and
gamma rays replacing the proton.

Every year our sun should be losing about 1020 protons (about a
milligram's worth) in this way. This is not much of a loss, but it is
irreversible, and it adds up. In 1035 years or so all of the
protons in the universe will be gone. The universe will then be empty of all
complex matter. There will be no galaxies, no stars, no planets, no organisms,
no molecules, no atoms, no nuclei. No matter at all will be left except for
some miscellaneous electrons and positrons seeking a final annihilation and
leaving behind only gamma rays.

This dismal eventuality is a prediction of "GUTs". (GUTs is short for
Grand Unified Theories; the plural s is because there are
several rival theories with more or less the same predictions.) GUTs ties
together three of the four fundamental forces of the universe, omitting only
gravity while connecting electromagnetism (the force acting in chemical
bonding) with the strong force (which holds nuclei together) and with
the weak force (which acts in "beta decay" when a radioactive nucleus
spits out an electron and a neutrino). GUTs says that in the ultra-hot era of
the early Big Bang the strong, weak, and electromagnetic forces were completely
indistinguishable. All were symmetric manifestations of the same force. Only
when the pristine simplicity of the initial Big Bang degenerated by cooling did
this change. After the early universe expanded a bit, the average energy
dropped below 1014 GeV and the symmetry of forces "broke". The
strong force became distinguishable from the still-symmetric electromagnetic +
weak forces. And later when the average energy dropped below 100 GeV a further
symmetry break occurred and the electromagnetic and weak forces became separate
and distinguishable. In our present "cold" era these three forces are very
different in their effects, but the bridge of their original symmetry still
tenuously remains. Protons can use this bridge to decay.

GUTs tells us that even now, in the veritable youth of our universe (which is
only about 1010 years old) some of the protons around us are
decaying. The GUTS estimate of the proton half-life (about 1032
years) is just on the hairy edge of what can be measured. And so in deep mines
and tunnels in Japan, India, France, Italy, and the USA physicists have mounted
expensive and "heroic" proton decay experiments. Enormous tanks of water are
being watched by the electronic eyes of tens of thousands of photomultiplier
tubes, awaiting the telltale light flashes which signal the death of a proton.
At this writing (12/83) no group has formally reported such an observation.
But there are rumors that several groups have "candidate events" which
are being studied and which may signify protons in the act of decay.

But why should something as obviously stable as a proton be unstable at its
roots? The Buddha gave the reason in about 485 BC: "All composite things
decay." And protons indeed decay because they are composite. We have
learned in the past two decades that protons are not "fundamental" as has been
previously supposed, but rather are composite particles made of three "quark"
constituents. It is the interactions and transformations of these quarks which
permits the proton to occasionally decay. So let us talk about quarks.

The quark model, the present theory of "elementary" particles (which is well
supported by experiment) tells us that quarks are "point-like" objects with a
"fractional" electrical charge Q (where electrons have Q=-1).
Quarks come in a sort of "six-pack" of possible "flavors". These flavors are
"up", "charmed", and "top*" (each having Q=+2/3), and "down", "strange",
and "bottom*" (each having Q=-1/3). The lightest quarks (up and down)
have only 37% of a proton's mass. The heaviest quarks are the bottom quark
with more than 5 times the proton's mass and the as yet unobserved top quark.
As I write this I have just heard a rumor that physicists at CERN laboratory in
Switzerland have found the top quark and determined its mass to be about 34
times greater than the mass of the proton. The family of six quark flavors
(abbreviated u, c, t, d, s, and b)
come in three "colors" (a sort of 3-value "strong" analog of electric charge)
and in matter and antimatter varieties.

Before the quark model came along, physicists were troubled by the bewildering
"zoo" of hadronic particles which had been discovered and which seemed to have
little systematics or interrelation. Hadrons are particles which respond to
the strong force. The quark model brought order to this area by demonstrating
that all of the many hadron particles were made of two or three quarks. Quarks
combine in matter-antimatter pairs to make medium-weight "meson" particles like
pi's, rho's and K's. A pi+ meson, for example, is made of a u quark and
an anti-d quark (Q=2/3+1/3=1). Quarks combine in triplets of the same
matter/antimatter type to make heavier "baryon" particles like protons,
neutrons, lambdas, and omegas. A proton contains one d and two u
quarks [Q=(-1/3)+(2/3)+(2/3)=1], and a neutron contains one u and two
d quarks [Q=(2/3)+(-1/3)+(-1/3)=0]. The quark model requires that
these two or three quark combinations must always give a charge Q which is an
integer (or zero). No fractionally charged particles are allowed. (See,
however, my article New Phenomena, Analog, February, 1983 which
discusses an apparent observation of fractional charge).

Single quarks cannot be found in isolation. The strong force that holds quarks
together is very strong indeed. It is so strong that if you try to pull
a quark out of a proton, you have to pull very hard, supplying in the process a
large amount of energy. So much energy is provided that more quarks and anti-quarks are created, one of which will immediately pair off with
the quark that you are attempting to remove. Therefore, no matter how hard you
try to grab a quark and pull it loose, you cannot end up holding an isolated
quark. You will instead find that you are holding quark stuck to an antiquark
to form a meson. In this way the quark groupings of two or three are always
preserved. It is possible to rearrange the groups but not to completely free
an isolated quark from its associates.

The strong force binds groups of quarks together, but it cannot change one
flavor of quark to another. This flavor-changing can, however, be done by the
weak force. In analogy with the "six-pack" of quark flavors, there is a
corresponding "six-pack" of leptons. Leptons are the light particles of the
weak interaction. They are the electron (e), muon (µ), and tau lepton
(tau),
all with unit charge, and their corresponding neutrinos (ne,
nµ, and ntau), all with charge zero.

The GUTS theories go a step beyond the quark model by matching up the six
leptons of the weak interaction with the six quark flavors of the strong
interaction. The assertion of GUTS is that leptons and quarks are the same
kind of objects, obeying similar general rules and which under some
circumstances can be converted into one another. The leptons are cousins of
the quarks, but there are differences. Leptons have only one color (or none).
There are no leptons with fractional charge but only charge one or zero. Figure
1 shows the family album of the quark clan and their lepton cousins.

The proton decay can occur because GUTS provides a connection between quarks
and leptons as members of the same extended family. It is possible for two of
the quarks within a proton to simultaneously forget who they are and to trade
places with their brothers or cousins. In particular, a u and a
d quark may suddenly become a positron and an anti-u quark, as
illustrated in Fig. 2. This means that the proton abruptly becomes a positron
and a pi-0 meson in loose association. Further, the pi-0 is unstable and in
about 10-16 seconds becomes a pair of very energetic gamma rays.
This process is not very likely because it requires two quarks to change at the
same time, but in the fullness of time it will happen to every proton in the
universe. And each time it happens, most of the proton's mass-energy is
liberated. This is not a good way of getting free energy, however, because
proton decay is an infinitesimally slow process.

But it now appears that there may be a way of speeding things up. The
way involves using a very peculiar particle that (probably) no one has ever
seen, the magnetic monopole. (The reader is referred to my article
AgainMonopoles, Analog, October, 1983). The GUTs
theories applied to the origins of the universe point to a curious happening.
Just after the Big Bang, the density of the universe is truly enormous, and
small regions of space contain so much mass-energy that they are rapidly
collapsing to black holes and as rapidly un-collapsing back into normal space.
Some of these mini-black-holes can develop a sort of indigestion by eating some
magnetic flux. Lines of magnetic flux can be left threading into or out of a
small black hole.

The "normal" small black hole has a very short lifetime. If it is near minimum
size it will rapidly evaporate by Hawking radiation and shrink to a rock-bottom
mass (the so called Planck mass of 10-8 grams or so) and then
disappear altogether in a final burst of energy. However, those black holes
which have an excess of magnetic flux cannot do this. Before they can
disappear, a way must be found to dump the magnetic flux excess. But no light
particle can carry away this net flux, so the black hole is "stuck". It is
like the loser in a game of Old Maid, stuck with a card it cannot unload. But
it cannot quit the game. It therefore becomes a new and a unique kind
of particle with a mass of the Planck mass and a net magnetic charge. This
kind of particle is called a "massive monopole" or simply a "monopole". If its
lines of flux are coming out, it is a north monopole (a positive
magnetic charge), and if the flux lines go in it is a southmonopole (a negative magnetic charge). Only if one monopole were to
encounter another monopole of the opposite magnetic charge, north monopole
meeting south monopole, could their burdens of magnetic flux be released so
that the monopole pair could annihilate in a burst of energy and disappear.

All recent models of Big Bang cosmology predict an uncomfortably large number
of massive monopoles should be produced in the Big Bang in equal numbers of the
north and south varieties. The near-chaos at the Beginning should twist
magnetic flux into very many knots which become monopoles. And yet, (with the
possible exception of the Cabrera event discussed in Again Monopoles) no
monopole has yet been seen. We won't, for the moment, worry about why
they have not been found. Let's instead assume that they are lurking around
somewhere (in the bowels of the Earth, perhaps) and that they can be used if we
are clever enough to find them.

Essentially then, a monopole is a tiny "replica" of the Big Bang. In its tiny
heart is a minute region of space which still retains the enormous energy
density which was once present in the Big Bang itself. And within this core
the forces of the universe are still indistinguishable from one another: the
strong, weak, and electromagnetic forces all are the same. There the quarks
and their lepton cousins are, in this domain, the same particles.

Consider then what will happen if a massive monopole comes very close to a
proton, attracted perhaps by the small magnetic dipole field which every proton
has. The quarks within the proton would have a reasonable probability of
encountering the core region of the monopole. And when this happens, the
quarks are very likely to "forget" their identity and to be changed to some
other flavor of quark or lepton. If this happens, proton decay becomes a near
certainty. But the monopole, the cause of it all, is unaffected. It is still
"stuck" with its surplus of magnetic flux, so it cannot participate in the
decay process.

Thus the monopole is the analog of a chemical catalyst. It is an agent
provocateur. It wanders through matter stimulating proton decay and
nuclear breakup without being changed itself. A single monopole can do this
over and over again as rapidly as it can find its way into successive protons
or nuclei. And with each such event, a quantity of energy is liberated which is
far greater than that released in uranium fission. The implications of
monopole catalysis are enormous. All matter, be it garbage or junk or gold
ingots, becomes a source of unlimited energy. Given a suitable supply of
monopoles the energy needs of the world are limited only by the supply of
matter to be catalyzed into energy. If massive monopoles are ever found, they
will be of incalculable worth for physical research and for energy production.

Beyond their utility as producers of energy, monopoles could probably be used
directly in a spaceship engine. There have already been studies by Robert W.
Forward and others showing that antimatter annihilating with matter in a
magnetic "hemi-bottle", an intense magnetic field pinched at one end and open
at the other would serve as an extremely efficient spaceship drive. The
problem is that the needed amount of antimatter fuel would require a truly
staggering investment, because the antimatter would have to be manufactured by
earth-based or orbiting "antiproton factories" of monumental size.

The same basic scheme, however, could be applied using monopole catalysis. The
"fuel" would then be atoms of normal matter caused to explode because their
protons and neutrons undergo catalyzed decay as a flux of monopoles is passed
through them. The hemi-bottle magnetic nozzle then provides the dual function
of guiding the charged nuclear fragments from the exploded nuclei out the
exhaust port of the engine and at the same time collecting the monopoles at the
pinch point for re-use in the next engine cycle.

There is another side-effect of monopole catalysis that is worrisome: with
monopoles around, the average life-expectancy of protons is reduced by a factor
of 1012 and becomes only about 1010 years. This is
because if one presumes that there are massive monopoles around which are
chewing away at the hearts of stars and planets, an average proton is far more
likely to decay by monopole catalysis than by "normal" decay. But since this
reduced life expectancy is still 10 billion times the present age of the
universe, it should not be a matter of immediate concern. So cheer up!! The
news of the ultimate death of matter-as-we-know-it in 1035 or
1020 years is not all that bad. Most of us won't be around by then
anyhow. And maybe we can use the intrinsic instability of the proton to take
us to the stars and give us lots of free energy in the meantime.

Footnote:

* The t and b quarks are also sometimes called "truth" and
"beauty", but these names seem to me presumptuous and lead physicists to
indulge in phrases like "naked truth" and "bare beauty". The top quark is
predicted but not yet detected.

Followup note: The top quark was detected in 1994 by the CDF
group at Fermi Lab and found to have a mass of about 185 GeV.
JGC
7/3/96

Figure 1 - The family album: The Magnetic Monopole (above); The
Quark Family (mid): top and bottom, charmed and strange, up and down; The
Lepton Family (below): tau lepton (tau) and tau neutrino (ntau), muon (µ)
and mu neutrino (nµ), electron (e) and electron neutrino (ne). Quarks to
the left have charge +2/3, quarks to the right have charge -1/3, leptons to the
left have charge -1, and leptons to the right (neutrinos) have no charge and
always travel with the velocity of light. The heavier particles are above and
to the left. All particles have corresponding anti-particles (not shown) of
the same mass but opposite charge.

Figure 2 - A wandering monopole induces proton decay: A proton with two
u and one d quarks encounters a monopole. One u and
d quark, under the influence of the monopole, "forget" their identities
and become an anti-electron (positron) and an anti-u (antiparticles
represented by reversed images). The proton has thus become a positron (e+) and a
po meson, which immediately decays into two gamma rays. Notice that
electrical charge is preserved during the decay process

John
Cramer's new book: a non-fiction work describing his Transactional
Interpretation of quantum mechanics, The Quantum Handshake - Entanglement,
Nonlocality, and Transactions, (Springer, January-2016)
is available for purchase online as a printed or eBook at: http://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319246406
.